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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Episode 123 – September 11 Resources From The Library of Congress

It’s Wednesday August 31, 2011 and welcome to episode 123 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. It is the end of August and thousands of educators are going back to school all across the nation. This month we have some September 11th resources to share with you as this year marks the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Dr. Cindy Rich is back again to share resources from the Library of Congress that teachers may be interested in using in the classroom. But first I want to take a moment to recognize the many individuals that have worked very hard over the summer to prepare for the first week of school.

Before teachers and professors return to school there is an invisible army of support staff that have been working away all summer to make the first week of back to school a successful one for students. From building service workers that have been doing maintenance, cleaning, and waxing of floors to the technical support staff that have been busy adding wireless Internet connections, installing new equipment, repairing old equipment, and updating software this time of year is always hectic. So if you see someone in the hallways that has made your life a little easier this week be sure to give them a thank you for all their efforts.

I want to personally give a salute to all the support staff that work tirelessly that are often unrecognized for all their efforts. We here at EIU are off to a smooth start to the school year and that is in no small part attributable to all the work that occurs over the summertime by numerous individuals that have things ready to go for the first week back to school. So thank you to all the dedicated staff that make a difference for a successful start to the school year.

At our university we have installed hundreds of new computers, updated thousands, and improved the network to handle increasing traffic. All of this is unnoticed unless something goes wrong. When you click your mouse on a link it just works. It just works because of all the preparation and hard work that goes into providing the services required to support a modern school.

TEACHING WITH PRIMARY SOURCES AND THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on America and many teachers will be looking for resources to share with students in a couple of weeks. Here is my interview with Dr. Cindy Rich who gives an overview of primary sources available at the Library of Congress website.

My Technology Pick of the Week this week are a couple of interactive timelines about the 9/11 tragedy. The History Channel offers a timeline along with a host of multimedia content including video, photos, audio, and interactive maos. A link is a available in the show notes:

These websites are interactive and allow you to scroll through a timeline to see a breakdown of the events of that tragic day.

There will also be many memorial services on 9/11 across America so be sure to checkout the opportunities to attend in your local area to Commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy. Here at EIU there are several events scheduled during the week of 9/11 including a candle light vigil & memorial service on Sunday evening the 11th on the quad as well as many guest speakers scheduled to speak at various events throughout the week.

That wraps it up for episode 123 of TechTalk4Teachers. I want to thank Dr. Rich for being a guest on todays show. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom.